Democrats have the deal sealed for November...

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

Hillary got three million more votes than Trump, who got help from the Russians.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

Work wid me here retired rocket scientist. Electoral college and gerrymandering? A state is a state is a state.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

I'm just looking at the polling data, which has put the Democrats consistently outside the margin of error on the up side since they started reporting on the November election. The "generic" data is usually a pretty good predictor, but if you start going down those head to head lists, you'll see Democrats in the lead in far more races than the "generic" poll would indicate, including in districts and states that have long been Republican territory. Many of them are within the margin of error, but many of those are in Red states and districts that Trump won in 2016. And over the past three months, the Democrat lead has been increasing.

I don't see that much has changed over the course of the past year, where Democrats have won a long string of special elections, and swept the off-year elections, capped by the unprecedented gains in Virginia, where they also generated a record turnout, the congressional district victory in a totally gerrymandered district in Pennsylvania, where they also got a record turnout, and the capper, the Senate race in Alabama, which they won on the strength of a sheer turnout of numbers in what some pundits call the third most Republican state in the country. The Democratic voter base, which is usually quiet during off year election cycles, is active, engaged, has raised more money nationally than either the Republicans, or than their own party did in 2016, is being kept active by Trump antics which keep happening on a regular basis, with two wonderful gifts this summer, including the border fiasco and Helsinki. And while the "endangered Democrats" in the senate all seem to be running comfortable campaigns, the GOP is having to kick money into Texas to buck up Ted Cruz, and into Nevada and Arizona. It's only July, goodness only knows what antics and gaffes Trump will come up with by November, and by then, the escalating trade war will have been a fire hose on economic growth. Unemployment is already ticking up in spite of job growth, two tenths of a percent last month, which the GOP would have screamed like banshees if Obama were still in office. So yeah, I'm optimistic.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

You are expanding the definition of gerrymandering to fit your data. If electoral boundaries are not being manipulated there's no gerrymandering. You could make your point without attempting that.

I'll stick with gerrymandering in the way the term is usually used.

But I would be interested to read any of the pundits who look at the electoral college and complain about gerrymandering.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

[David Flick]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[David Flick]

[Dave Roberts]

For what it is now worth, I live in the ultimate gerrymandered district. Virginia's Third Congressional District begins in Chesapeake, VA, in an effort to get predominantly African-American neighborhoods, goes west along the North Carolina Border for about 75 miles. Then its borders turn North encompassing three African-American majority cities (or parts of them: Emporia, Petersburg, and Hopewell. From there, the district runs into the beginnings of Richmond's southern suburbs in Chesterfield County. It's basically a district packed with a predominantly Democratic majority to insure the GOP at least two adjoining districts. If future elections aren't determined in such hijinks, I don't know what is.

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]